Articles

President's weekly report — January 31, 2014

January 31, 2014 | By ROB RIVETT

Environment — Right to challenge wetlands designation mistake We filed this opposition to the federal government’s motion to dismiss our case against the government in Duarte Nursery v. United States Army Corps of Engineers.  That’s the case where the Corps ordered John Duarte to stop farming on his property, supposedly becaus ...

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School choice across the world

January 31, 2014 | By CHRISTINA MARTIN

Nowhere is the value of school choice more evident than when parents make huge sacrifices to get their children into a good school.  This may involve paying for private school tuition or home school curriculum, driving the extra miles (literally), wading through bureaucratic inter- or intra-district transfer policies for public schools, or getting ...

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California Senate wants voters to give state universities the power to discriminate

January 31, 2014 | By JOSHUA THOMPSON

In a vote that fell along strict party lines, the California Senate Democrat supermajority voted yesterday to put a controversial constitutional amendment on the November ballot. SCA5 would give universities the power to judge students on the basis of race when they are applying for admission to a school in the University of California or … ...

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Lawsuit seeks to empower schools to fire bad teachers

January 31, 2014 | By PACIFIC LEGAL FOUNDATION

Should California’s schools be able to fire ineffective teachers? This is the subject of Vergara v. California, which asks the court to declare unconstitutional several California laws that hinder schools’ ability to fire ineffective teachers. For example, one challenged law allows a school to tenure a teacher after only 18 months on th ...

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PLF and school choice

January 30, 2014 | By JOSHUA THOMPSON

As PLF continues to celebrate School Choice Week 2014, here’s a look at some of the important school choice cases that we litigated last year: … ...

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Are they in it for the money?

January 30, 2014 | By DAMIEN SCHIFF

I have no doubt that many in the environmental community are sincere in their convictions.  Nevertheless, sometimes one wonders whether Congress’s decision to require the losers in many different types of environmental lawsuits to pay the plaintiffs’ attorney’s fees creates the right incentives.  A friend recently brought an exe ...

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Rural school choice : a personal perspective

January 29, 2014 | By JONATHAN WILLIAMS

People across the country are celebrating National School Choice Week. The vast majority of school choice discussions focus on the struggles of kids in failing urban school districts. However, school choice also has a role to play in rural areas. Schools in these communities enroll one of four American students. In these communities four out ̷ ...

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Sierra Club tries to block Del Mar Fairground visitors

January 29, 2014 | By JONATHAN WILLIAMS

On January 8,the Sierra Club filed a lawsuit against the California Coastal Commission seeking to block the Del Mar Fairgrounds’ Coastal Development Permit for parking at the fair. The fair needed a permit because the Commission classified parking outside of fair season as “development” in a “wetland.” After a long se ...

Articles

How the Supreme Court launched the disparity study industry

January 29, 2014 | By RALPH KASARDA

This last Sunday the Wall Street Journal published an excellent article written by Roger Clegg of the Center for Equal Opportunity, and John Sullivan of Croson Legal Services.  The article marks the 25th anniversary of an important Supreme Court decision in City of Richmond v. J.A. Croson Co. In Croson, the Supreme Court held that … ...